A Night For Change
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1541: Still upset with Rachel for the secret she kept from her, Chloe heads to a party with her friends in order to clear her head. - Red series


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 73rd cycle. Now cycle 74!_

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**"A Night For Change"  
((Older) Rachel, Sophie (OC),) Chloe (OC), George (OC)  
Red series  
_(no listing yet; sequel to Silence Before Songs)_  
**

When they'd initially asked her, she'd said no. She couldn't be all that surprised that her friends would think she was in need of a night out, with the mood she was putting out at the workshop that week. She was still working through her feelings in the aftermath of finding out Rachel Berry, her idol, teacher, and host, had found and contacted her birth father, and that he'd never bothered to tell her he'd come to see. As much as part of her was beginning to accept that neither Rachel nor her daughter had any ill intent in doing this, that they'd done this to try and help her, she couldn't flip a switch and stop being upset.

The subject of the party had first been brought up during a pause in between segments at the workshop, and she'd said no. It had been brought up again over lunch, and again she had said no. She would accept on the third turn, but even as she did, she wasn't entirely sure how they'd suddenly managed to convince her. Maybe she was just deciding that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, for one night, to be able to forget her troubles.

So on Friday night she headed to Eva's place, where her friend helped get her ready, insisted on it, and it was at that precise moment Chloe figured out there was something about this party that they hadn't told her about. She wouldn't figure out what that thing was until later, specifically until they arrived at the location of the party and she recognized the building: it was George's apartment building. George was the one having the party. It had never occurred to her that he would be there, and suddenly the night wasn't what she'd planned it to be anymore.

They didn't see George at all for a long time, even though this was his party. There were a lot of people, it was loud, and Tara, Eva, and Marcus had pulled her up to dance. Then one drink happened, and then another, and then a third, and she was coming to think that this was exactly what she'd needed, to put aside frustration and anger and just have fun.

She had forgotten something else, too, so much so that when she'd bumped into someone and turned to find George there, she had completely forgotten this was his party.

"George!" she spoke louder so to be heard over the music. "What are you doing here?" she beamed tipsily. He looked happy to see her, which was one thing she definitely did not want to forget.

"I live here," he reminded her and, even though she'd never actually been inside this place, she did look upon it now with recollection. "Are you okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" she asked.

"I didn't mean… It's just I've seen you at the workshop this week and you looked a bit… unimpressed. You used to sit there like you'd never heard anything more important in your life."

"Maybe I've opened my eyes, or I've had them opened for me," she looked down at her cup, the edge of which had become mangled by her finger slowly tearing into it. "I should get another one," she thought aloud.

"How many have you had already?" George asked, and as much as she could tell somewhere in her head that he was merely concerned for her, it was much further away compared to the part near the surface, which took this with a frown.

"I know what I'm doing, I can hold my own, and guess which parent I got that from," she raised her cup before moving to get a new one.

"I'm sorry, I didn't meant to upset you," he followed behind, and when she turned back to him, she stared at him for a while before her face softened and she remembered not only that he was her friend but that he was someone she actually really liked.

"No, it's alright," she told him, feeding suddenly very confident that the best thing to do at the moment was to throw her arms around him, which she did. She didn't move, or speak, but then she felt him put his arms around her, too, and whether or not this was done because he wanted to do it or because he didn't know what else to do, she had no idea. She may have been teetering on the edge between tipsy and drunk, but she still had enough awareness to suddenly realize what she was doing and to be concerned of what she'd find when she saw his face again.

But when she looked up, he didn't look at all shocked, or turned off, or as though he thought her crazy. He looked content, he looked… like a Greek statue. And in that moment, she would swear, time had slowed all around them, the music was barely an echo far away. There was George, looking down at her, with those rows of white teeth smiling, and the next thing she knew, she was up on the tips of her toes, with her arms still around him and his around her, the better to kiss him.

She'd done it on impulse, and the moment her lips had touched his it had been a shock to her system, making her wonder what on earth she was doing, but then in the time it took her to think about this, she had completely missed the fact that he was kissing her back. When she did feel it, she smiled, pulling herself closer to him. Maybe in the morning she would remember this moment and wonder if it would turn out to be a mistake, but that was hours away, and for the time being she was kissing the boy she'd been dreaming about, and he was kissing her back, and nothing, absolutely nothing, not even her father or Rachel Berry could wreck this moment. She was somewhere in heaven, on a cloud, and her Greek statue was actually an angel.

For how little she'd seen of George for the first hour or so, throughout the remainder of the party, he was never so far away. They danced together, several times, shared another kiss or two… She didn't want it to end, didn't want to have to leave and return to everything else, but she had to, and when the night was done, she left George with one more kiss, one she'd try to commit as close to memory as she could, to keep on making her smile, if nothing else would.

THE END

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******A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
************always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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